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Old 15 Aug 10, 08:45 PM  
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California, Here We Come - Day 4 - LHR to LAX, yay!

The Story So Far...

The Pre-Trip Report

Day 1 - Travelling to London

Day 2 - Two Musicals

Day 3 - The London Bridge Experience and touring London

The Cast

Myself, Rachel, 35, loves planning and theme parks. Can get a bit obsessive about holidays.

OH, Andrew, 43, usually goes along with my plans, loves driving and big trucks, doesn’t care for rides but is happy to mind bags, pushchair and energetic toddler.

DS1, Dan, 15, loves rollercoasters and music. Surgically attached to his Ipod.

DD, Hannah, 11, loves Tinkerbell, swimming pools and getting her own way. Wants to do anything and everything.

DS2, Tom, 2, Mr Independent, thinks he can do everything the big ones do, loves Toy Story and Mickey Mouse.

Monday 26th July

Today was a day I was both looking forward to and dreading; looking forward to it as we would finally get to California and dreading it – well, I think eleven hours on a plane with a two year old should explain that!

We piled in for breakfast at the Premier Inn again. If you have children I would definitely recommend staying here; the price is great, the rooms are always clean and comfortable and the breakfast is a bargain. Ok, advertisement over before Lenny Henry thinks I’m after his job.

We went outside to catch the Hoppa bus for the final time. Doesn’t Hannah look excited to be going away?



We arrived at the airport and looked around for check-in. Hmm, maybe that’s it under the HUGE Virgin Airlines sign. There only seemed to be self check-in available but luckily they had a member of staff stationed there to help the enormous number of people, us included, who weren’t sure what to do. We then needed to get the bags checked in so stood in another queue to so this. I think I prefer when check-in and bag drop are just done at the same time – it seemed to take forever doing it this way. However, cases, car seat and pushchair checked in and we merely had three bags, two Trunkis, a teenager, a child and a toddler to take care of. Once through security we found seats and settled down to wait for boarding time. Andrew went to buy coffees and juices and the rest of us took turns taking Tom to look at a huge Spiderman figure in TGI Fridays.

Soon our gate number was announced and we went there and watched the meals being loaded onto it – hours of fun guaranteed!



Our plane was Mystic Maiden and it wasn’t long before we were onboard.



We had four seats across the centre and Dan got the lucky seat across the aisle where he spent the whole journey listening to music and snoozing in relative peace. I know some people (for example my Mam) don’t like travelling but really, what’s not to like? You get to sit around watching TV and reading books while people bring you food and drink then clear away after you. Really, what’s not to like? It’s slightly more complicated when you have a toddler to entertain however, but Tom was ok really. Well, apart from spilling juice down Andrew’s trousers but it had dried by the time we got off. Hannah really enjoyed her flight; she was excited by the Virgin rucksack and amenities pack she got, she watched Streetdance (twice), Nanny McPhee and the Simpsons and played for ages on the trivia game. She thought it was great how often she was fed as well and asked if we can fly with Virgin everytime.

Dan apparently watched Live at the Apollo and Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Road-show but spent the vast majority of the time asleep – as he usually does on a plane. Andrew’s not a big TV watcher so he watched Damned United and took turns with me entertaining Tom. I attempted to watch the Lovely Bones and Nanny McPhee but got a bit bored with both. I was a bit disappointed that Shrek wasn’t one of the films as I’d hoped it might be but not to be. I watched a bit of Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Road-show with John Bishop who I find really funny and had to control myself not to laugh out loud on the plane. It did however take me about four hours to watch a 40 minute programme as I had to keep turning it off to read Tom’s new Toy Story book. He also kept asking for Mickey Mouse’s Club house to be put on but wouldn’t wear the earphones so he was watching it without the sound. He also kept pressing the buttons on the controller in the arm of the chair and accidentally knocking it off. I lost count of how many times I restarted it on that flight!

The food seemed to come thick and fast; first we had a choice of cheese and tomato pasta, sausage and mash (Andrew) or sweet and sour chicken (the rest of us) with the usual bread, salad and a scrummy Gu chocolate pudding. Tom was very pleased with his children’s meal and we were very pleased to eat his Haribos that came with it as he doesn’t like jelly sweets. Later we were served a slightly squishy, slightly melted ice cream bar and after that a hot wrap – either spinach and ricotta (Andrew) or honey mustard chicken (everyone else). Finally, not long before landing we got a sandwich. Andrew and Hannah got coronation chicken but as we’d had chicken all day I chose the cheese and pickle, which was a big mistake as it was hard and tasteless. Dan and Tom were both asleep by this point so missed out… or not as the case may be.

There were times in the eleven hour flight when it seemed as if we were going to be flying forever but we did eventually land and looking back, the flight was far better than I expected and as we got off a couple of passenger commented on how well Tom had behaved, which was nice of them.

We joined the lengthy queue for immigration but there were plenty of desks open and the queue moved quickly. At one point we were stopped by a lady with a clipboard who asked to see our passports. After a quick glance she commented

“No, you’re not them” and passed the passports back.

“We’re not who you’re looking for, eh?” asked Andrew and she replied

“No, you should be glad it’s not you we’re looking for” which sounded a bit scary and ominous but it turned out to be the next people in the queue they wanted. Despite my imagination running riot and imagining drug smugglers or human trafficking or something, it turned out she needed to tell them their pushchair and car-seat hadn’t made their connecting flight from Ireland and that the airport would have to lend them a car seat to get to their hotel. I imagine that would be a bit inconvenient but I was quite impressed at how good communication between airports must be for them to be waiting to let the people know as soon as they got off the plane.

We seemed to get asked a lot of questions at immigration, such as when was our last visit to USA, was that to California, how long did we stay last time, how long were we staying this time, were we staying in California for the whole time, were we hiring a car etc, etc. He also asked Dan how old he was and asked Hannah when her birthday was. Lots more questions than we’ve had before…but they only took one fingerprint rather than full set.

Our bags, car seat and pushchair were waiting for us when we got through immigration and we passed easily through customs and onto the exit. Just before the exit we were met by a tiny, little old lady who asked where we were headed then fired a whole load of questions at us without really waiting for an answer in between. It went something like

“Where you headed? You got a ride booked? Is it Supershuttle? Yeah? I’ll show you where to go. I recognise that T-shirt (I had a Minnie T-shirt on), You going there? Is it a secret? You been before? Florida? Oh, I’ve been there once. Ok, down there and you’ll see the sign for Supershuttle. Have a great vacation”

Then she disappeared! I have no clue who she was and whether she worked for the airport or Supershuttle or whether she was she having a day out at the airport! But anyway, it made it a lot easier for us to find out where we needed to go.

We gave our names to the man at the Supershuttle sign and he asked to see our confirmation e-mail which luckily I’d printed and had on me. With hindsight, I think he probably couldn’t understand what we said when we said our name as almost universally during our trip when anyone wrote our name down they always wrote Robin which isn’t actually that similar to what our surname is.

Our bus soon turned up and off we went to our hotel. The driver had a little computer rigged up next to his seat and he spent loads of the journey fiddling with it and taking messages – a bit worrying when the huge, busy roads appeared to be filled with crazy people who had somehow been allowed to drive a car. My initial impressions of LA weren’t that great. The freeways all seemed to just be comprised of loads of concrete; the roads and verges and tunnels all merged into one big concrete vision filled with litter and loads of bits of blown out tyres.

But never mind, after about 50 minutes we were safely at our hotel and thought the lobby was very clean, shiny and attractive.





Check in was soon completed and we were able to go to our room which was right at the end of a corridor at the back of the hotel – nice and peaceful. The room was fairly basic, as we’d expected but clean and comfortable and as my DH is often heard to say “you don’t go on holiday to sit in your room”.

Tom was exhausted and was soon in bed and I had a quick bath and jumped into bed myself. Andrew and the older two went for a quick walk to orientate themselves and I fell asleep while they were out. Apparently, they came back fairly soon after with bottles of juice and a huge bag of crisps that stayed on top of the wardrobe for the entire holiday without anyone eating any! Everyone else also went to bed and I think we were all asleep by 8pm – well, it was 4am back home!

Tomorrow: Vegas, baby!

Edited at 09:40 AM.
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Old 15 Aug 10, 08:57 PM  
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Good flight - hoping to do California next year so can't wait to read the rest.
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Old 15 Aug 10, 09:37 PM  
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Flight sounds good, i am hopefully on that flight in 10 days!

What HI did you stay in? I booked the Holiday Inn and Suites on Walnut in Anaheim via Hotwire.
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Old 15 Aug 10, 10:34 PM  
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Hi, glad you all got there ok! looking forward to the magic starting!
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Old 15 Aug 10, 10:56 PM  
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Originally Posted by joandwayne View Post
Good flight - hoping to do California next year so can't wait to read the rest.
Me too.

Great travel day.
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Old 15 Aug 10, 11:02 PM  
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I recognise that hotel - Holiday Inn Buena Park! We stayed there at Easter and loved it - wish I was there now!
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Old 15 Aug 10, 11:17 PM  
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What a good trip over - Tom's a star, 11 hours is a very long time for such a little one! Can't wait to read the next installment...
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Old 15 Aug 10, 11:58 PM  
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Great start, we flew to LA on mystic maiden last year glad you got there ok, hope you're not up too early the next day though. Look forward to the next installment.
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Old 16 Aug 10, 12:32 AM  
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Originally Posted by joandwayne View Post
Good flight - hoping to do California next year so can't wait to read the rest.
Great. Hope my trip report is some use to you. I read loads before we went away and got loads of useful tips.

Originally Posted by ukdiva View Post
Flight sounds good, i am hopefully on that flight in 10 days!

What HI did you stay in? I booked the Holiday Inn and Suites on Walnut in Anaheim via Hotwire.
Oh, how exciting. Can I be envious even though we just got back? It's the Holiday Inn Buena Park, slightly outside of Anaheim.

Originally Posted by houseofmouse View Post
Hi, glad you all got there ok! looking forward to the magic starting!
Thanks. Hope you enjoy it!

Originally Posted by Leeds Tink View Post
Me too.

Great travel day.
Yeah, it wasn't bad, all things considered. Thanks for reading

Originally Posted by emery66 View Post
I recognise that hotel - Holiday Inn Buena Park! We stayed there at Easter and loved it - wish I was there now!
Got it in one! It's a nice hotel isn't it. We felt quite at home there!

Originally Posted by liverbird View Post
What a good trip over - Tom's a star, 11 hours is a very long time for such a little one! Can't wait to read the next installment...
He did well really. We were quite ambitious ttempting such a long flight - it could have been a nightmare. Luckily it wasn't, phew!

Originally Posted by Sarah84 View Post
Great start, we flew to LA on mystic maiden last year glad you got there ok, hope you're not up too early the next day though. Look forward to the next installment.
We weren't up early at all. I think we slept for 12 hours
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Old 16 Aug 10, 10:07 AM  
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Great travelling day. It's lovely that your fellow passengers commented on your well behaved little fella. Proud mum time

My mind always go blank when they start asking questions at immigration lol When they ask how long we're staying I panic about whether they mean how many days or how many nights. I blame the long flight
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